Monday, March 14, 2011

How to: Be a Financial AllStar

We have goals for the future. We each want to have a nice house, a new car, fancy furniture, lots of electronics and maybe a personal assistant or two. We are also willing to bet you want these things too. You might think that "money doesn't buy happiness." Good for you but, in this clusterfuck day and age, you're wrong. We are 100% confident that anyone who has ever uttered those words has accepted the cruel fate of, at best, middle class (or has a job doing something they truly love. Yoga teaching, anyone?) You might think that people who have nice things actually paid for them out of pocket but, again, you are probably totally wrong. You need to realize that the reason people have nice shit is because someone else paid for it. No one wants to break their back trying to support their family AND have nice things. That is what makes having great credit vital, especially when the economy we live in is a bigger trainwreck than us on Fat Tuesday (or any given Thursday, Friday or Saturday night.)

We are in no way a financial genius or even semi-competent at living in today's society. Luckily, the fact of the matter doesn't actually matter. We refuse to give up on having a life surrounded by lots of money (Scrooge McDuck anyone?) and that is what makes us the most qualified people to fix this crisis. (Blow us, Suze Orman.) Desperation is key. We truly have discovered the trick to fixing the bullshit mess that the American economy, credit card companies and credit lenders have converged to become. Pay close attention because we can't do it without YOU!

Please note that this plan is a complete and total resolution to the problem and not an overnight fix. Martin Luther King said it best: Rome wasn't built in a day. If you are the kind of person that wants an exchange for your phone 3 seconds into talking to technical support, read no futher. Actually, read on and stop being an ass.

For starters, it's essential to play lenders' and collectors' games. If they are going to harass you about getting "their money," why not do the same? To be fair, you probably never had the money their panties are in a bunch over in the first place, so who are they to try and collect money that was never yours nor theirs? This brings us to an essential point: anytime you have the opportunity to get money from someone else (read: are offered some sort of loan or credit card), take it. Sure, having your credit checked will hurt your score, but who cares? Not you! Be persistent. There will always be a big enough idiot out there to give you money. Say, for example, your lesbian friend drags you along to Home Depot. Even though you've never wanted to purchase anything here, you've made the adult decision that you simply can not live without a 500 pack of neon colored zipties. Don't let yourself talk yourself out of this purchase. Moreover, when you make said idiotic purchase, incquire about a Home Depot credit card. If they approve you, obviously your next move is to buy more stupid shit that you will never, ever 'need' but can easily rationalize purchasing. Paint your whole house, upgrade your appliances even though the closest you get to cooking is getting stoned and watching the Food Network, buy an outdoor heater even though you live in an apartment. Fuck it, the possibilties are endless. Go wild.

The next step is to never ever pay your bills. Like "The Secret" says, 'pretend your bills are checks in the mail.' (If you were getting checks from Time Warner Cable, you sure as shit wouldn't send Time Warner Cable money back, right?) That said, it's best if you aren't the only one doing this. Try to convince your friends and family to stop paying their bills too. Make it into a "Pay It Forward" sort of thing. If every one of us can convince 3 people to stop paying their bills, who in turn, convince 3 more people to stop paying their bills, we are on the right track. As monetary idiots, we're all familiar with the concept of pyramid schemes. What we're saying here is that we need to band together to help everyone screw up their credit. Your 320 credit score will stop looking so ugly once all the scores plummet to the 300s.* If we can get the median to drop down to the mid 300s there is no longer a problem. Suddenly you don't seem like such a fuck-up.

*Like the semi-attractive girl who brings out all of her ugly friends, thus becoming "the hot girl"

As a united front, we need to keep looking for opportunities to stick it to these bastards**. Make sure you do everything in your power to cost collectors at least as much time and money as they are trying to get out of you, if not more. Make it habit to always answer the phone when creditors call. For the sake of efficiency, change your ring back tone to the most obnoxious song you can find so you can start annoying them before you've even said "hello." Drag these phone calls out as long as possible. Assuming that these collectors are only making about $10 dollars an hour, you need to waste at least 100 hours on them. If you aren't creative enough to kill that much time, trying busting out the Twilight series or SkyMall and just read it to them. However, neither one of us really has that kind of time and by that we mean we don't really have that kind of attention span.

**People that understand that giving me $1,000 and expecting me to pay back is a terrible idea

So what else can we do? If you can be a big enough ass to get one employee to quit, you have made a huge stride in screwing with this company***. The half assed google search that I've completed tells me it costs about $4,800 to hire and train a new call center employee. If at this point you start feeling like a terrible person, keep in mind that you pay taxes. You've probably already paid these companies. If anything, they owe you money. Don't stop there though, get as many employees as possible to quit. You can go ahead and stop once someone that was hired as a result of you getting someone else to quit resigns. I have no clue how you'll know this and you will probably be blacklisted from calling in before that happens, so take this as far as your short attention span allows.

***Now, to be clear, we do not support mistreating employees who are just trying to make ends meet but this is one situation where it's in your best interest to get creative. Also, call us crazy, but quitting a shitty call center job is probably a huge blessing (potentially not even in disguise)

We admit, these tips aren't going to fix your problems over night. A much easier fix, as previously mentioned, is to have someone else pay for all of your shit for you. Now, creepy old guys will ALWAYS be on the lookout for some baby bimbo to spoil rotten/have suck them off. Call us crazy, but this is gross. Anna Nicole Smith would agree if she wasn't dead. No. We are here once and for all to put an end to this poppycock. Being "shallow" is really just a bitchy term ugly people put on those of us who have insanely high standards/aren't blind/know that someone's sparking personality isn't enough to make us want to passionately jump their bones. Don't hate. Beggars can't be choosers. For example, one of us ate blueberries and soy milk for breakfast, hiked 20+ miles in the past week and teaches yoga for christ sake. Being "hot" isn't always "easy" but it IS definitely always worth it. Obviously it's in everyone's best interest to get married. Clearly, the target has perfect credit and, thus, as someone with prefect credit, we can assume that they play by the rules. This means one thing: charming, young, hot things are IRRESISTIBLE to them. Everyone wins here. As hot young things we acknowledge that we totally deserve to be married**** and the older "daddy" type clearly believes that, with their lifelong history of obeying rules and paying bills, they deserve nothing less than a barely-legal hottie to be at their beck and call.*****

****Remember, divorce is ALWAYS an option
*****Do small shit like "cook" frozen Trader Joes entrees or give half-assed back massages

The moral of this scientific, factual article: In the process of creditors collecting losses from you, cause even more losses for the company. Marry rich. Actually, don't do that either, your credit will screw theirs up too. Just get someone rich to get you pregnant. There we go. Problem solved. Now what to do with this baby...

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Welcome...

The world can be a scary and confusing place. Sometimes all you need is a little ray of sunshine and some fairy dust (a cloud of pot smoke) to get you through. Well put on your sunglasses (you're probably hungover), we're re-examining what it means to be zen in the 21st century: a time idiots claim is the end of days.

Classy Lauren Brenner is a comedian and yoga teacher in Los Angeles, CA. She is a glorious pain in the ass with "Classy" tattooed on hers. Jordan is a prentetious, former professional dog walker from Denver with an undeserved sense of accomplishment.